Much lauded F1 strategy group Pow-Wow – is a flop

The hype prior to yesterday’s strategy group meeting was fairly epic, even by F1 standards. The various parties managed to purvey their self-interests across various media outlets by an impressive amount of internet ink; manifestos were mooted and the future of F1 itself was apparently at stake.

As TJ13 presented in “Formula One’s two dragons to be slain” there are two big issues facing Formula One. Firstly, the stymied governance procedures must be addressed and secondly the fact that Ferrari can finish fourth in the championship and still receive a gargantuan and disproportionate amount of cash relative to their achievements, demonstrates the distribution of income along with the basic cost base level are screwed.

At yesterday’s meeting of the F1 strategy group, neither topic was considered with anything more than a passing nod and a wink. The participants preferred to discuss the minutia of whether lowering the cars would create more sparks and how to bling up the wheels.

The biggest decision made by F1’s rulers, may well have fallen the way of Bernie’s well worn polemic, relating to the introduction of customer cars.

This topic will now be sent for the consideration of the ‘bonus constructor’ teams – Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes. Williams have been for time and memorial opposed to this concept.

No vested interests there worthy of note.

By the time this topic emerges from this auspicious collective, the young will be old, and the aged long dead.

Christian Horner’s suggestion for a fifth engine to be allowed this year so the fans would see more running in FP1 looks dead in the water. Mercedes were happy to agree to a Friday fifth engine, but it appears certain other predictable self interests were merely using the Malaysia consensus on the issue to mitigate their ever closer problem of a ten grid penalty drop.

Horner was philosophic about the fifth engine proposal in Bahrain, following Danny Ricciardo’s final lap Renault based fireworks display. “Whether it’s five or eight engines, it doesn’t make a difference to us,” was Spice boy’s conclusion. time.

With cost cutting rejected by the strategy group yesterday and no chance of a fairer redistribution of the income amongst the teams, today’s announcements about what the strategy group did agree upon, will have the gravitas of Nero’s quill and parchment based order for a new ‘G’ string.

Yet this is no surprise.

Until Jean Todt and the FIA take the picket fence spike from out of the rear of their joint posterior and refrain from backing the F1 teams’ majority views – the chickens, turkeys and lunatics are still running the show.

Historic complaints over the collusion between Ecclestone and Spanky over the big F1 decisions they made, is with hindsight churlish, because at least SOMETHING got done.

But for now, we await just a few hours for the strategy group announcements, and the results unsurprisingly will resemble a programme of change which can be only be agreed at the lowest common denominator.

7 responses to “Much lauded F1 strategy group Pow-Wow – is a flop”

I’d like to see a scenario where something gets pushed thru via Bernie’s motivation, aided and abetted by, probably, the FIA ….Merc (for example) then gets the $hits and says ‘We’re out of here, as of now’.
Bernie rubs his hands and says ‘We’re really sorry to see you go, but……(blah, blah, blah-legalese)’
Merc says ‘No worries. We have enough documented and our lawyers are primed to see you off’. Injunction is ready to file which will cause racing to cease’.

F1 is not working an oligarchy. There is just too much self interest. There needs to be a ruler. I think this is the FIA’s job, but it certainly cannot be the the top four or five teams with changes requiring a unanimous vote.

Ferrari’s bonus is 97m, and Merc got merely 92m for winning the WCC. By this token, Ferrari could finish 10th (!) in the WCC—like Sauber, no points—and still get 1.5x more than Force India, Toro Rosso, Lotus, Marussia, Sauber or Caterham even if any of these teams were to win the WCC. How ridiculous does it get? This isn’t Ferrari getting what’s due to Ferrari given its prestige; this is outright cheating within the system, and stacking the deck in your favor in broad daylight…